dimarts, 31 de maig del 2011

INFECTED VEGETABLES

"So far 17 people have died from the bug in Germany, and it is suspected in another death. One also died in Sweden. All they because of E coli, which have been spread via contaminated raw cucumbers or tomatoes, but E coli usually inhabits the guts of cattle and sheep.
Germans are still being advised not to eat raw vegetables.

European health authorities are urgently trying to pinpoint the source of this epidemic. German scientists say they have decoded the new E. coli strain's genes, with help from a Chinese lab. It is a new hybrid form toxic to humans.

Nearly 500 infected people in Germany have got haemolytic-uraemic syndrome (HUS), which harms the kidneys and nervous system and can be fatal.


Spain says it will seek damages from Germany over initial claims that its produce was the source of the outbreak. Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said he would demand reparations for the economic losses suffered; spanish fruit and vegetable exporters estimate they are losing 200m euros ($290m; £177m) a week in sales."



Oh my god.. What lacked in Spain! "Luckily" the problem wasn't here. But it's terribly equally... In my opinion, trucks which transported cucumbers and tomatoes, have transported cattle before (they have the E coli) and the trucks haven't been perfectly cleaned. 

There, I give a health advice. It's very important to know that:

   - Wash fruit and vegetables before eating them
   - Peel or cook fruit and vegetables
   -  Wash hands regularly to prevent person-to-person spread of E. coli strain 


diumenge, 29 de maig del 2011

WE'RE INDIGNANT!

"Anger over Spain's dire economic situation has prompted thousands of people to fill Barcelona's famous Plaza de Catalunya following an attempt by riot police to break up an anti-government protest camp there.

City authorities said they needed to empty the square, which is popular among football fans, ahead of Saturday's Champions League final between Barcelona and Manchester United."



That's what is happening in my country, sadly. Politicians are the most terribly liars and the banks are thief. And tell me.. what can we do? To me, it's wonderful that people have got up and have started to move. If I could, I would go in Barcelona right now! (well, there's well, there's in all Spain the revolution, but I only say Barcelona because it's in my "territory")

Moreover, I think that Felip Puig is a son of a bi***. It's extremely inhuman say that you are going to "clean" Plaça Catalunya and do this... that's how you clean your house, Felip? it was very sadly see in television how the police hit innocent people. And the worst of all.. the excuse was the match between Barça and Manchester!

"Daddy.. what have you done in your job tomorrow?
- I've beaten to the people who demanded a better future for you!"

I can't say anymore... I only hope a better future for all. 

divendres, 27 de maig del 2011

PODCAST: DIALOGUE



Paula De Scheemaeker: Jamie & Polly
Natàlia Sellés: Tania

Happy Birtdhay Victor! :)

Last 25th May was my best friend Victor's birthday. I didn't buy him something because he lives in Barcelona and I can't give it to him... so I started more than one month before to create a story. I created a character called Nowhere Girl. This name is because of in this moment I was listening the song Nowhere Man of the Beatles, and that inspirated me. I started to created her with wire, wet toilet paper, plasticine and clothes of the Bratz!


There's one photo of her:


I had to make three faces: one with the eyes closed, the other with the eyes opened, and the last with a smile... I had to changed her head a lot of times to create the stop motion! It was hard, but the result it's good... (but I think that it could be better!)

Nowhere girl and me!

I'm extremely glad. I showed it on Facebook and a lot of people congratulated me. They said to me that it was a great job, and it was very wonderful for me because I was recording it for a long time and it was very hard... and also because I want to do it for the rest of my life. I want to study Audiovisual Communication :) So after to read the comments, I was happy, because before I had lost all my hopes...

If you want, there's the video: 


I learned some english recording it too, thanks to the songs that I have put in it. Nowhere Man of the Beatles have a lot of vocabulary that I didn't hear before, and in the video I have put some phrases in english too.

By the way, in the video you can see a big comment in a mysterious language... it's a language that Victor and me have created, called Yerzlev. Only we can know what is in the text! 


Victor said to me that he loved so much the video... he said to me that it was his favorite movie! so the result it's GREAT! That was my objective :)




dilluns, 23 de maig del 2011

ORAL PRESENTATION: HUNGER IN THE WORLD

We have got some problems with the video.. so we only have the powerpoint and the transcription. Sorry!

TRANSCRIPTION:


Paula


We are Paula and Natalia and our presentation talks about hunger in the world. We have chosen this theme because we think that is really shocking that there are 16.000 (sixteen thousand) children in the world who die everyday because of hunger. This means one child dies every five seconds.
Our principal objectives were find the causes about it and learn more about hunger, because we think that it’s a really big problem actually and it’s been it for a long time ago.

Mundial hunger is one of the biggest problems of our world today.The cause of the hunger is that, the people who suffer it, don’t have enough food to eat, and to feed their children and family. They have less than 1.9 kcal. Because of that, a lot of people die everyday, and we waste a lot of food.

954.000.000 (nine hundred fifty four milion) people in the world are underfed. 820.000.000 (eight hundred twenty milion) of these people are in developing countries.


As you can see in this graphic, the most part of poverty is in Asia and the Pacific. Then, there are Sub-Saharian Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Near Est and North Africa, and finally there are poverty too in the developed countries.

There are many causes for hunger. One of them are the naturals causes.
People who lives in areas very cold or very hot, have more problems to obtain food, because there's no good land to plant vegetables.
Moreover, the problem is that the land is not being used efficiently enough.
Economical causes: Most of food is produced in developed nations, like the United States. For it to get to countries that need it, there are huge expenses in packaging, transporting, and distributing this food.

Sociocultural causes:
Many times, there are underlying cultural beliefs which prevent progress, as religion.
For example, in South Asia, society holds women responsible for all the key actions required to end hunger. But at the same time, trough laws, custom and tradition, women are denied the resources and the freedom of action to carry on these responsibilities. So it's not that women are incapable of making progress, it's simply that they are restricted by their own culture.

Natalia: 
One question is.. there's food for all the people? and the answer is, yes there's.Yet there is plenty of food in the world for everyone. The problem is that hungry people are trapped in severe poverty. They haven't got much money to buy enough food to eat. It causes that they become ill, and this makes that them can't work, which then makes them even poorer and hungrier.
Hunger causes some diseases:

AIDS (Sida): AIDS kills a little less than 2 million people a year, or about one person every 17 seconds.
The worst number of dead is in Africa.
Pneumonia: it kills more than 2 million children each year in poor countries.
Pneumonia is contagious and is commonly transmitted when an infected person coughs.
Diarrheal and cholera kill about 1.6 million people each year, almost all of them children. Diarrhea is most often a result of unclean water, unsafe sanitation, or poor hygiene.
Tuberculosis: is highly contagious and spreads through the air from coughing. If not treated, a person with tuberculosis infects of 10 to 15 people each year.
Malaria: over a million people die from malaria each year. It's spread by mosquitoes.
Close to 90% of malaria causes occur in Africa.

In the PAST: Major hunger problems have occurred through history, leaving millions of people dead or suffering from the effects of hunger.
In the FUTURE: The problem of world hunger can be solved. But we have to act, because it will be increased if we continue so, and it will cause serious consequences on children, society and the future of humanity.
There's some measures to solve hunger:
  • For adults, there are “food for work” programs where the adults are paid with food to build schools, make roads... This both nourishes them and builds infrastructure to end the poverty. For children, there are “food for education” programs where the children are provided with food when they attend school.
  • Also, we can reduce or eliminate the transportation costs. If food is produced closer to where it is needed, costs are much lower.
  • Companies need to realize that in order to make more money in these less developed regions, they must invert more as well.


    Well, that's our oral presentation... there's any question?


    OPINION ABOUT OUR ORAL PRESENTATION: 


    I think that it wasn't so bad. I was a little nervous, as always.. but in my opinion it was good!







dimarts, 10 de maig del 2011

Brian's Birthday!

Last 6th May was Brian's Birthday. Between all, we bought him an Ocarina, as the one of Zelda Ocarina of Time. He said to me that he wanted an ocarina... so we bought it! It cost about 90 euros... wow. But well, we were a lot of people colaborating!
There's the ocarina:

It's the same as Link have in the game. Be friki.. :D


I went to his house and I gave him the instrument with one letter signed by all.  I think that he was very suprised! ^^ After it, we all went to Figueres, because there was "Barraques" and the "amusement park". It was very funny, but I had a problem: no one wanted to go with me in the biggest roller coasters.. and I had to go alone... it isn't so funny if you go alone, but well...
It was a great day ^^ and my Brian is 17 years old now!!

 Last year we also went to the "amusement park", and after we went to the cinema. I didn't know Brian very well, but because of his birthday (and other reasons) I started to know much better Brian, and I'm so glad of it :) it was an incredible discovery!

dimecres, 4 de maig del 2011

Story about a dream

I was listening music at home when my friend Pau arrived. He told me that she had to travel to London before it got dark. He asked me if I wanted to go with him and I, obviously, accepted it. Afterwards, we took a submarine. It was very strange, but we go to London with a yellow submarine. 


While we were traveling, the submarine started to lose his control. We were terribly scared. At that moment, the submarine crashed and I misteriously appeared in a strawberry field.


I looked around me for a long time, but I didn't see anything. Suddenly, a beautiful girl appeared over my head. She was flying! She was wearing a dress full of diamonds, and she told me that her name was Lucy. She smiled at me, and afterwards, I appeared in a new place; it was a cementery. I was walking for a long time. Later, I saw a big and spectacular tomb. The tomb had a name: Eleanor Rigby. I was looking at the name, when suddenly another girl appeared behind me. She told me: all the lonely people... where do they all come from? All the lonely people... where do they all belong?
I couldn't understand what she was telling me.


The place changed again. Where was I? I felt extremely lost. I was relaxing when I saw a hughe octopus. I started to run, but actually, I couldn't move my legs at all. The enormous octopus was looking at me, and he told me: you're in the Octopus Garden. I mean, my garden!!


Suddenly, I woke up. I still was at home, listening to The Beatles. It was a dream which listening to that music came to my head. I dreamt with their songs!!



diumenge, 1 de maig del 2011

Informal Letter

C/Nowhere num.8
Sant Peter Fisherman
8th March 2011

Dear Kieron,

I'm glad to hear about you. Thanks for your letter! Sorry I haven't written for so long but I've been very busy. 

You've asked me what places you can go. In my opinion, you have to go to Paris (and to Disneyland, of course!). There, you can go to the Eiffel Tower, and to the Louvre Museum. I know that you love architecture and art in general, so you must go there!

By the way, you have to go to Notre Dame's Cathedral (maybe you'll see Cuasimodo!). 
Definetely, if you go to Paris, you must go to Disneyland. It's magic! I'm sure you'll be a child again, and I'm sure too that you'll enjoy it a lot.

And Kieron, you have to know that I want to go to Ireland to visit you. (I hope that you'll still be there when I come with you).

My parents have bought me a puppie, so if we travel to Ireland, we'll have to bring him! It's so beautiful... his name is Sírius.

Well, that's all for now. I'll phone you someday! Bye for now, my friend... I'm looking forward too seeing you!


Love,


Natàlia.